SOUTHAMPTON

[adfly]

That, along with that frequently ranted about new taxiway would be a very good step in the right direction. And I'd bet it has some link to Flybe ending the sun routes and ditching the E195's at the end of the summer!

The 5% increase in passengers for February is also good to see.

[TCAS FAN]

Assuming that the whole 150 metres extension is available for take-off, that will give a 1800m TORA for runway 20. CAA may however insist that it is published as 1799m to stay within Code 3 runway dimensions (due to the runway width, ie less than 45m). That's 61 metres better than SEN, albeit SEN doesn't have the same obstacle problem off the end of the runway.

Could the future be orange?

[hampshireandy]

Could the future be orange?

lets hope so, its bound to be an improvement on Flybe, and about time they had some competition to wake them up.

[Cloud1]

Dont get too carried away hampshireandy....

EZY will not be able to offer any useful schedule from SOU to domestic or 'local Europe' considering the size of their aircraft in relation to competition at other airports such as LGW and a fairly low demand for domestic air travel.

SOU is a great airport but the infrastructure is stretched to its max at times. Whilst it gets busy there is not enough demand to cater for two airlines and it is certainly not cost or reliability which keeps the numbers low. BE are actually not that badly priced in comparison to other airports when you factor in additional costs. It is a similar story if you want to travel say from EXT with Thomson - they are often hundreds of pounds more expensive than BRS.

Reliability wise, statistics show BE are actually above average and their competition. (CAA stats)

EZY touching down at SOU would not neccesarily be a good thing. The only benefit would be if they picked up some of the Spanish routes once Flybe stop them but BE simply will not give a monkeys by then. Should the A319s in orange ever start using SOU it will be on routes which wouldnt even effect BE and if they did, it would be EZY backing off them eventually.

[davidjohnson6]

Clermont-Ferrand increased from 1x weekly to 3x weekly
Not 100% convinced there is demand based on passenger numbers in previous years, but whoever made the decision presumably has access to forward booking numbers and other non-public commercial information

[adfly]

S14 vs S13

In this post I shall try and summarise all of the key changes compared to last summer.

Aurigny:

Same as ever ~21 weekly flights to ACI with extra in the peak/for Alderny week.

Blue Islands:

No changes for JER, GCI will be all on the 66 seat ATR 72 500, a significant increase compared to the 19 seat J32 used last year.

Eastern:

'New' Routes -

LBA - 15x weekly J41/S20

Increases -

ABZ - 10x weekly J41/S20 (6x weekly in S13)

Flybe:

Increases -

AMS - 22 weekly (19 weekly in S13)
BES - 4 weekly (3 weekly in S13)
CFE - 2/3 weekly (1 weekly in S13)
EGC - 8 weekly (7 weekly in S13 - 2nd Sat flight added)
EDI - 32 weekly (~30 weekly in S13 - main difference is there are 5 flights on every weekday now)
GCI - 28 weekly (26 weekly in S13)
JER - 32 weekly (26 weekly in S13)
VRN - 3 weekly (2 weekly in S13 - 2nd Sat flight added)

Decreases -

DUB - 21 weekly (up to 24 weekly in S13)
NCE - 3 weekly (up to 4 weekly in S13)
PMI - 5 weekly (up to 6 weekly in S13)

Dropped Routes -

BCN - 2 weekly
BZR - 2 weekly
HAJ - 6 weekly
IOM - 3 weekly
LBA - 17 weekly

Other things to note are -

EDI/GLA have gone from mostly E195's to mostly Q400's.
The early afternoon DUB flight has been upgraded to an E195.

Thomas Cook:

New Routes -

FAO - 6 weekly (selling seats/packages on BE flights)

Increases -

PMI - 5 weekly (1 weekly charter in S13, as above for S14)
VRN - 3 weekly (2 weekly in S13, again as above)

Dropped Routes -

IBZ - 1 weekly in S13
MAH - 1 weekly in S13

Thomson:

PMI - 1 weekly (Using a Volotea 717, sold packages on scheduled BE flights last year)

[anne747380]

How many E-Jets will Southampton have this summer?Somewhere here,I read that by the end of March they are withdrawing most of them ecept for 4,is that right?

[GCILover]

Does anyone know if any airline has shown interest in the Spanish routes when flybe pull the plug at the end of the season.

It will be a dramatic loss of flights if no one picks any of them up.

[adfly]

It's surprisingly hard to find a suitable carrier -

Ryanair - Nope, they seem quite happy at BOH plus the runway/stands are useless for them.
Easyjet - Unlikely, fairly close to LGW, runway less of an issue but stands still can only take 2 A319/20's at a time.
Thomson - Tend to fly a mix of shorter and longer routes so the runway is too short as are the stands, plus they also seem happy at BOH. However some extra W pattern flights to PMI could appear next year if they have room to in the schedule.
Thomas Cook - As above, could see the odd W pattern to the Balearic's at best.
Monarch - Still quite unlikely due to stands (notice a trend?) but they do fly more <3 hour routes than TOM/TCX so the runway could be less of an issue. I'd say they have a small outside chance.
Jet2 - On paper they seem the most suitable, stands are less of an issue for the 733's however I question whether they would want to start flying from t'south where they have far less brand recognition.

As for foreign carriers Vueling could take a second look and have an operation similar to their CWL one. HOP! could look at serving Nice if the demand is strong enough for a foreign carrier with less recognition in the UK to serve it. Volotea would be an outside suggestion...

[gkmeech]

Summer Sun Routes

I too would like to know who are picking up the 'Summer Sun' routes from SOU. I have flown with Flybe to Majorca every year that they have operated the flights. There has never been a flight where there was less than 85% load factor on an E195. Seems strange that no-one would be interested. I have asked Southampton Airport on a couple of occasions but they totally avoid answering my question.

[Groundloop]

As 85% of 118 is only 100 this may be why many operators of larger aircraft may not be interested.

[davidjohnson6]

Mediterranean beach routes

It's April, and many carriers are still in the process of releasing seats for winter 14/15. I imagine LCCs will begin releasing summer 2015 seats around September later this year.
Perhaps best to wait until the autumn before anything about the future of beach routes from SOU is revealed ?

[gkmeech]

Summer Sun Routes

FlyBe used to run the Malaga and Alicante sectors throughout the winter as well.

[Lord Spandex Masher]

...and never made any money on them, even when they were full.

[MARKEYD]

I would imagine Ryanair will clear up on the sun routes for sure as they have already increased frequency on many routes down the road at Bournemouth this summer in anticipation of Flybe and this winter , with no flights being offered will only add to there delight

Thomson are repeating this summer season holidays and flights to Palma with a Volotea B 717 operating the Saturday service again for 2015

[adfly]

Good to see Thomson returning next year, SOU will have at least one Spanish route for S15! Hopefully they will look and see if they have room to add extra flights or use a larger aircraft as most of this years years flights seem to be fully or mostly booked already according to their website.

[MARKEYD]

Flybe are slowly releasing seats for the winter 2014 / 15 season and at the moment the Ski flights seem to well down on last year . This could all change though as very earl days still

Geneva which was daily throughout the winter goes back to 3 flights at the weekend ( may be Easy Jet at Bournemouth have the monoply on that route these days ) Chambery has 2 flights along with 1 flight to SZG and GNB all using the Dash 8 400

Inghams Ski return with a service to Innsbruck using Austrian again

No sign of Thomas Cook returning for summer 2015 at the moment

[uptoncol]

Tcx 2015

With Ref to no flights chartered by Thomas cook for summer 2015 last year they never appeared until the 2nd edition brouchers went on sale which is normally the last Thursday in july .


col

[adfly]

Flybe W14/15

Flybe's winter schedule has a few changes compared to last year:

All the Ski routes return mid December (GVA, SZG, CMF, GNB) however GVA is down significantly, from up to 9 weekly last year (daily and 2x on Sat/Sun) to just 3 weekly (2x Sat 1x Sun) CMF is 1x Sat 1x Sun and GNB/SZG are 1x Sat.

ALC/AGP (operated 3 weekly for most of the past winter) have been dropped as a result of the culling of the E195's from the fleet leaving SOU with no winter sun destinations.

DUB increases to 27 weekly (4x daily and 3x on Sat) with a new late evening flight that over nights in DUB (think it is 'based' there for the LCY route).

The rest of the schedule seems to be pretty similar. In addition, Inghams will continue their Saturday INN flight for next winter and it will be again be operated by Austrian/Tyrolean. Neilson are also still flying a weekly Sunday charter to ILD, although it is on a Q400 next winter.

[GCILover]

Are you sure it's LEI. Almeria???